The Kingmaker

8 - Collision

"Long morning?"

Eden smiled up at her server, a plump, middle-aged woman with a head of curly blond hair and rosy cheeks. There was never a day when this woman didn't look lovely, honestly.

"One after the other," Eden answered with a sigh, and she closed the worn manila folder she had been perusing before setting it down on the table. "I've had my share of bad turns for a while, it would be nice to get a good one for once."

"No luck yet, huh?"

"Not yet." Eden pushed her mug forward so that the woman could top it off with steaming black coffee. "I might have to hang up my degree and call it quits on that. Lot of good four extra years of school did me. I swore I'd never go back to bagging for cranky customers at a supermarket, but I don't see a lot of options here."

"I'm sorry, sweetie," the woman sympathized. "You know you're always welcome here for a pick-me-up, though. You sure you don't want something to eat, at least? Things always feel a little better on a full stomach."

Eden shook her head, the corners of her mouth turning up in a rueful smile. "I wish, but just coffee for today. On a scary tight budget this month until I get this job thing sorted out. Heating bill is going to come out high."

"Mm, yep. Our winters here are awful. Well, give me a shout if you need anything, honey. You know I'll be right over there with Donna."

"Thanks, Diana. I'll be out of your hair soon, gotta hit the pavement again and get back to hunting down a job." Eden raised her mug in a farewell salute and watched the woman bustle away.

Just another few minutes, she thought. The last three weeks of careful observation and patient diligence would bear fruit today, or at least begin to. There was a reason she had picked this place out of all the others, after all, and it wasn't because of their mediocre coffee or scant breakfast selection. No, not at all.

Her reasons had more to do with Diana's nephew (which made him Donna's son, poor woman) a shifty looking brunet who had his hands sunk deep into the wrong pies, dangerous pies - ones that Eden could exploit. She needed a way in - one that wouldn't shine suspicion on her - and who better to lure to her aid than a young man hip deep in the mess already? She wouldn't even have to get her hands dirty, just trod on his shoulders and cross the swamp to her destination. She almost felt sorry for him (and for his mother and aunt whose coffee she had been drinking religiously every day at lunch), but that was just how things had to be.

She had come here with an objective, a final destination. And she would step on anyone she needed to so that she could attain both, and that included Nate Gilligan who had just turned the corner and was walking by the diner windows now.

Eden slid out of the booth with the manila folder in her hands. With her nose in the papers, she made her way to the exit, measuring her pace against that of the young man she could see nearing the door himself. What a coincidence it would be, she thought, when they bumped into each other there.

Her face was in the folder, and how unfortunate it was that she was too busy flipping the pages inside to pay attention to anything in front of her. A recipe for disaster, truly.

As for the young man who was now opening the door - well, most would step aside and begrudgingly let her through, willing to grant her that small courtesy to avoid an unpleasant collision that would prove inconveniencing to both parties. But not Nate, she thought with an inward smile. Not Nate Gilligan, who she knew would open the door and stand right in her way, unmoving. Simple man, easy to predict.

"Oh!"

Papers flew into the air, and Eden tottered on her feet before unfamiliar hands caught her by the waist to steady her. She floundered and ended up collapsing against a chest that immediately tightened and inflated at her touch.

"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed again. "I'm so sorry - I'm such a klutz."

"No, that was all me. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

Eden quickly pushed herself away from the man, noting with satisfaction how his hands tried to linger on her sides. "Oh, no," she said hurriedly. "Not at all. I'm so sorry, I can't believe..."

She quickly knelt down on the diner floor to begin picking up the copies of her entirely fabricated resume, her black pencil skirt innocuously riding up her knees and revealing bare, slender calves when she bent over.

"Here, let me help."

Funny how he had pitched his voice about a full octave lower than normal, Eden thought. It nearly made her laugh aloud. Well, good. That would have to make up for him touching her with his grimy hands, the comedy he so unintentionally provided. That, and his particular connections that she would make full use of in the coming days.

"Thanks so much," she said, tilting her head up to give him a shy smile just as their hands began bumping into each other over the fallen papers. "It's been an awful day, I'm lucky I ran into you and not someone else who might have bitten my head off."

He gave her a slow, sleazy smile, and his eyes glanced down to the collar of her white button down blouse. Only two buttons strategically undone, of course. Enough to garner interest but not suspicion.

"I'm the lucky one, I think," he said as they slowly stood up together, Eden's folder freshly restocked and back in her hands. "My name's Nathan. Nate, if you want."

"I'm Abigail," she replied, and she pushed her hair back behind her ear with a demure expression. "I just moved here a few weeks ago, still getting used to the place. Must be why I'm so clumsy lately."

"Nice to meet you, Abigail." His tongue darted out to lick his bottom lip. "Hey, let me make this up to you. What do you say I treat you to a tour of the city, get you acquainted with the sights?"

Eden blushed.

"I'd love that."

---------

"You never make things easy for anyone, do you, Zero?"

"With all due respect, Director Baines, I'm not here to make things easy. I'm here to do my job, sir."

Behind his desk, the older, balding man leaned back in his chair and observed the mercenary with a scrutinizing eye. "I heard from Agent Cooke that you were interrupting his surveillance almost every night for three weeks."

"He's free to report whatever he wishes, sir."

"And all he told me was that you'd been inappropriate, indecent, and grossly unfit to cooperate with."

"He's free to report that as well."

Director Baines sighed and leaned forward on crossed forearms. "Zero, your peers would respect you a great deal more if you dropped the incompetent act with them. And you'd get the results you want a lot more easily in the process. There's no need for this...facade you put on. You're an intelligent young man, not even at your prime and yet you regularly surpass my own men's performance. You could do a lot of good here if you just stop alienating the people you're paid to work with."

"As you said, I'm paid to work with them. That's what I do."

"Yes, with this front that you put on that makes them underestimate you. Zero, I need you to understand that what you're doing is lowering our efficiency, making things harder for everyone involved. If you didn't make Agent Cooke despise you so much, he would have passed along your concerns before this ever happened, and matters would have been handled long before it ever came to this. But I don't think this bothers you at all, does it?"

"No, sir, it doesn't."

The blunt reply didn't even faze the older man, who seemed to have expected just such a response.

"Let me make something clear, then. I know that I'm not the one you intended to work with when you were commissioned to collaborate with this unit, but I need you to understand that for as long as I am in this seat, for as long as I am interim director - I exercise just as much authority as Director Roan and expect the same level of effort that you would have applied to this venture otherwise."

"Yes, sir."

"Zero, enough with that. We've known each other too long, and considering that I'm one of the only ones left who actually know what your game is, I would like you to extend me the courtesy of your honesty, at least."

The mercenary held Baines's stare for a moment, seemingly unaffected by the latter's exasperation. As the seconds ticked by, however, his stiff demeanor suddenly changed: while his face remained as impassive and stony as ever, his stance relaxed, shoulders dropping and chest expanding with a slow inhale.

"That's better. Thank you." But despite the positive affirmation, the director sighed again and leaned back in his chair once more. "Let me guess," he said. "You knew that Agent Cooke was going to dismiss your suspicions immediately, am I correct?"

"Yes."

"And you specifically behaved in such a way that would reinforce his skepticism, make him even more reluctant to support your theory or report it to me. In other words, you knowingly acted in a way that would sabotage his work. I could censure you for that as it is, but of course, we both know that's futile. I don't have anything to threaten you with, so I'm stuck with you just as much as you're stuck with me. Is that why you did this?"

Zero's face revealed nothing. "I didn't sabotage his work. Ray did that to himself."

"I can't prove it anyway, so you might as well drop the pretense. I know how you work by now...even if Director Roan hadn't given me advance warning about you. And she was right. You've been all too reticent about cooperating without her at the helm."

"If you send me to Alexandria immediately, I'll handle this quickly."

"If you'd handled this the right way, I wouldn't have to send you to Alexandria at all. But that was your objective anyway, wasn't it? Get out from under me and roam free where you want. That was the idea, wasn't it?"

A tense silence fell over the office as both men stared each other down, but Zero didn't remain silent for long.

"I'm privately contracted with your department," he said lightly. "I'll go where the money leads, and I'll make my own opportunities when needed."

"So you're trying to tell me that you engineered this so that we'll pay you more to go after her, is that it? And it's got nothing to do with personal grudges or trying to prove that this unit cannot function properly without Director Roan's leadership?"

Zero said nothing this time, but there was a coolly composed set to his face that made a verbal response unnecessary. Baines continued to level his hard gaze upon the young man, but with no response forthcoming, he seemed to cede defeat.

"Fine. Do as you will, as long as you know that you'll have no backup and no additional resources to call upon when you enter Alexandria. What you take with you is what you'll have, that's it. And you'll have to extract yourself and the target once the job is done. We won't be able to secure a way out for you."

"Yes, sir. I'm aware."

"Sir? Back to formalities, are we?" the older man asked dryly. "Just as well, there's nothing further we need to talk about anyway, or at least nothing you'd be willing to discuss. Go on. Pack your things, whatever you think you'll need. Do you have a way to get into the city? A cover?"

"I've made arrangements."

"Already?" Baines asked. "So you really were planning this all along. I can't tell you how disappointed that makes me."

"I'll be going in as part of a private security detail for DaleCorp's executives," Zero continued, pretending obliviousness to the resigned accusation in the director's voice. "I'll have free rein, exercise full autonomy to get the job done. They'll be pleased about whatever I do for them, and in the meantime I'll track down the girl. Once I find her, I'll inform them I'm no longer available for employ."

"You think they'll let you go just like that?"

"There's no shortage of potential personnel to replace me, and plenty of private contractors end up reneging on their agreements when they spend enough time in Alexandria. They won't suspect anything. Their only concern will be the cost, but I have no issues with turning the initial fee back over to them since I'll expect full compensation by your department when I return."

Baine grimaced. "Do I want to know how much?"

"I've sent over the documents already. They'll be with your things."

"Ah. So I don't want to know. Fine, anything else?"

"Nothing, sir," replied Zero.

"And the next time I see you, you'll have the girl?"

"Yes, sir."

"See that you do. We'll continue our other discussion when you return. Oh, but one last thing. This stays in-house, Zero. You, Director Roan, and I are the only ones who know about this, and it needs to stay that way unless we want to give the Department of Defense the final push it needs to decommission this unit. And I know you would like to avoid that as much as I do, correct?"

Zero gave him a swift once-over that Baines would have missed if he hadn't been expecting it, but there was nothing else to be said. Without another word, he turned and strode out of the office, leaving the director to stare after him with a pinched, exhausted expression on his face.

"Dismissed, I suppose."